Outdoor Cat Enclosures

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Benefits of Outdoor Cat Enclosures

Free access to cat runs is one of the best things an owner can provide for indoor cats. Making sure she or he gets plenty of time out-of-doors is a free and easy way to improve their health. Outdoor cat enclosures are a wonderful option.

The modern move towards keeping cats indoors is a fantastic way to keep them safe, as well as preventing them consuming the local wildlife.

However, there are serious drawbacks for the health of cats that are kept inside on a permanent basis, and never get to venture outside at all. Further down the page, I will share information on making outdoor cat enclosures and runs.

But first, let us take a quick look at why having some sort of outdoor cat house is so important. Apart from being able to make your cat happy, there are health benefits!

Cats Need Sunlight

The first thing is that all animals require sunlight upon them to be in optimal health. The sun that comes through glass gets filtered and is missing some of the most important rays. Having access to direct, unfiltered sunlight is a basic need and necessary for long-term health.

Cats Need Fresh Air

The second thing is toxic household air. Especially in cases where there is no fresh air movement through the house, this can be a real issue. Sick building syndrome is a modern result of how we live our lives and affects our indoor pets as well as ourselves. Most houses have indoor pollution from our furniture and fittings, electronics and other things.

Cats Need To Have Grounding

Thirdly, and possible the most important is the connection to the ground. Referred to as “earthing” or ”grounding”, simply touching the earth with your body is a massively healing thing to do.

An interesting study of a family who lived close to large power pylons showed the people tested very high in the bad EMF (electromagnetic frequencies).

Whereas the animals living in the fields and grazing close to and even right underneath the pylons – were completely clear of these harmful frequencies. The people were disconnected from the earth by the floor in the house, whereas the animals are constantly touching the earth.

Although earthing provides massive health benefits – it costs you absolutely nothing! As long as you can get your cats outdoor time, even just an hour or two each day, then you are doing them a massive favor.

How Can You Let An Indoors Cat Go Outside Safely?

So, you have an indoors only cat and want to get them outside, but need to also keep them contained and safe. Having lots of cool cat toys around is great – but you want them to have the health benefits and experiences of the outside world. What can you do?

There are many types of outdoor enclosure for cats – from small cage styles to the much larger and more permanent cat run enclosure. Many of the smaller ones and portable cat runs are available for purchase online, and some are great. You can view a good range of different styles of cat enclosures here: Cats Play.

However, many of those are not really spacious enough for your cat to enjoy his or her outdoors semi-freedom.

Types of Outside Cat Enclosures

If you want to build a cat enclosure yourself, there are many ways you can choose to go. You might like to make a small or large, permanent structure which would be really good if you own your own home and are planning to live in your current location for a long time. You could choose to have a professional builder install this for you.

However, there are easy and cheap ways to make cat safe enclosures that are fast to install and easily dismantled, when needed. I will be sharing here some articles that have been offered by cat owners that show you from start to finish exactly how you can build a really cool cat enclosure yourself.

In the first article, you can see a really neat way of enclosing your patio, verandah or carport with cat netting. The maker of that enclosure used their carport which is attached to the house. Their cats can go out of the house into the enclosure via a cat door from their kitchen.

In the second article, you can see the same cat owner has made a simple and relatively cheap outdoor cat enclosures extension to their first cat run. This is so that their cats can actually get out onto the grass, run and play and lounge in the sunshine – at will. They also get the stimulation of watching birds and wildlife that venture near their outdoor cat enclosures.

If you want to take a short-cut, and purchase a ready-made outdoor cat enclosure, you can find a good range here: Cats Play

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